Finds of two lead ingots or ‘pigs’, apparently produced in Swaledale lead mines during the period of Roman occupation, have been reported, but neither object is known to have survived. One was reportedly melted and reused, while the other was said to have been sent to the British Museum, where searches have failed to locate it.
The latter was first mentioned in Harry Speight’s book Romantic Richmondshire, published in 1897. He wrote (p. 207-8): “The mines at Hurst are believed to be on the site of a Roman penal settlement, to which the Roman commanders sent their convicts to labour. A piece of lead bearing the name of ADRIAN was discovered in one of the oldest workings about 50 years ago and is now in the British Museum.”
In 1956 Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby in their book The Yorkshire Dales reported (p. 251) that the pig was now lost. In 1965, Arthur Raistrick and Bernard Jennings added in their History of Lead Mining in the Pennines (p. 3) that all efforts to trace it had failed, and it was feared it had been melted down. Another search of the British Museum collection was conducted by one of its curators in 2012, and once again drew a blank. It’s possible from Speight’s description that the find was a fragment of a full pig, or at least a poor-quality example, which might explain its loss.
The second Roman lead pig reportedly found in Swaledale was also described by Hartley and Ingilby in their book of 1956. They told (p. 251) of the find occurring sometime around the 1870s at Crackpot in the Little Haverdale valley. They reported that its historic value had not been realised and it had been melted down. Later, Edmund Cooper, in his book A History of Swaledale (1973), expanded the story, revealing (p. 15) that this pig was said to have borne the imprint of an emperor’s head and some Roman lettering, and had been found in Crackpot Gill by Mr Francis Garth. Cooper said he had been told by the finder’s daughter, who must have been very old at the time, that her father melted it down “to fix iron crooks into stone gateposts.”
The British Museum has 12 Roman lead ingots that can be viewed in its online catalogue. The one located nearest to Swaledale was found at Heyshaw Moor, Nidderdale, and bears an inscription that translates as [Cast] when the Emperor Caesar Domitian Augustus had been consul seven times, i.e., circa 80 AD.
Images and information similar to the above can be found in the SWAAG database, Archaeological Finds category PDF, scroll to record no. 604.
